Sara Gavryck-Ji is a recipient of the 2018 SCBWI Illustrator Mentorship Award and the 2018 SCBWI San Francisco North & East Bay Diverse Creator Award Scholarship. In addition to her personal creative work, Sara works for the Send It Foundation, supporting other young adult cancer survivors in their healing journeys through outdoor adventure and community. Previously she wrote and photographed for environmental organizations, and worked in the image collection at National Geographic. Sara lived and worked in China for over 5 years, is fluent in Mandarin, and took many classes in Chinese calligraphy and painting over the years. While living in China she backpacked the “wild” sections of the Great Wall and the Tibetan pilgrimage route around the sacred Karwa Kapo Mountain straddling the border between Yunnan and Tibet.
In 2020, just as the pandemic was unfolding, Sara was diagnosed with neuroendocrine cancer in her lungs and thyroid cancer. Reconnecting and learning from nature has been a major theme in her healing journey and artwork — the lessons nature offers in resilience, change, interdependence, and the cycles of life. She currently lives in Berkeley, CA with her two young boys.
Recent shows:
Hidden Heart of Freedom: Mindful Art, Mangalam Center, Berkeley, CA, 2019.
